There are plenty of big games coming up. Avatar: Frontiers of Pandora, The Division 3 and the rumored Far Cry 7. With how the series has progressed over the years, there are several things we would like to see changed in the next game. Let’s go over all of them here.
New Premise
When Far Cry 3 was released, its premise was intriguing in many ways as a fish-out-of-water protagonist fights back against a despotic yet charismatic local leader in an exotic setting. It did present some nuance to prevent players from seeing themselves as the hero, as seen in Far Cry 4 and 5, but by Far Cry 6, the whole idea was getting tired.
With Far Cry 7, a new approach and treatment to the story are necessary, and based on rumors, that may happen. It’s reportedly a non-linear story where players must rescue their family from the Sons of Truth. They can rescue family members in any order, and the story changes based on your actions, with 100 percent completion only possible by saving them all. Interestingly, there’s a time limit of 72 hours in-game. Things could still change, but as it stands, this sounds fresh and intriguing, though we’d have to see how it’s handled.
Brand New Setting
Far Cry is known for its globe-hopping settings, from an unnamed African location to fictionalized versions of the Himalayas. With Far Cry 6 repeating the tropical islands setting for the third time (Far Cry 1 had Micronesia, and Far Cry 3 had the Rook Islands), it’s time for something new. Perhaps Japan, with its scenic beauty and sheer range of locations, from the metropolis of Tokyo to the more rural Kyoto? It would make for something truly unique for the series, which is desperately needed.
Less Bloat
As the developer focused on making its games bigger, the bloat began to build. This came to a head in Far Cry 6, where the focus was seemingly on providing more content for lengthening playtime. Far Cry 7 needs to streamline things, remove the quests and activities that don’t work and polish the content that does. Less can be more in some cases.
More Involving Side Quests
Even if rumors hadn’t emerged about Far Cry 7 having a non-linear story which changes based on your decisions (including family members potentially dying), the side missions have long needed an overhaul. More involving side missions with interesting stories and branching decisions would be welcome. Far Cry 6 had this to a degree, but they don’t all need to feed into the larger story and could present unique plot points that run through the course of the experience.
New Ways to Unlock the Map
With all the different ways to explore an open world in today’s games, it was nice to see Far Cry 6 do away with towers for unlocking the map. Unfortunately, Far Cry 6 didn’t do anything new in that regard. Towers don’t necessarily need to make a comeback, but what about discovering maps to an area and then having to delve into them for all the little points of interest, a la Elden Ring? It would help encourage exploration without spelling things out for the player.
Improve Hunting
Hunting is a major part of the series, as players use resources from slain animals to upgrade pouches to hold more ammo and items. It was best showcased in Primal but unnecessary and downplayed in Far Cry 6. Considering how other open-world titles, like the developer’s own Avatar: Frontiers of Pandora, reinforce its importance, here’s hoping that Far Cry 7 can do the same and expand on it further.
Extensive Weapon Customization
While Far Cry has had weapon customization, it would be nice to go even deeper and change a gun from the ground up, turning an assault rifle into a full-auto shotgun or a semi-automatic pistol into an SMG.
Less Focus on Loot
If there’s one thing that Far Cry 7 must do, it’s move away from the loot and weapon rarities. It needs to focus more on interesting weapons, instead of trying so hard to be Destiny. Unique weapons could still have a place, especially for implementing guns unlike everything else, like flamethrowers, bows, crossbows, harpoon guns, etc. They could mix things up even further, adding some variety to the usual pistols, shotguns, assault rifles and snipers.
Streamline Ammo Switching
Understandably, the developer wants to give players a reason to use different guns. Why implement so many different kinds if one weapon does the trick across the board? The solution in Far Cry 6 was to have different ammo types, some more effective than others on specific enemies.
The problem is that not only is ammo switching a pain, but you also had to carry different types around (until a quality of life change allowed for changing on the fly) and using the wrong ammo type felt too punishing. It’s not a bad idea in theory, but Far Cry 7 desperately needs to streamline the whole deal and make it less tedious.
The Classic Skill Tree
Another amazingly annoying change in Far Cry 6 is skills being tied to gear. While it may seem like a great way to encourage a loot game, that’s not what fans want. They don’t want to chase after gear and then switch off from some skills (or worse, equip something useless for their playstyle). Instead, the Skill Tree from previous Far Cry titles needs to return. Let players earn XP, unlock new Skills, and specialize in their playstyle like the good ol’ days.
Fortresses
Before the outposts became so tiring, Far Cry 4 attempted to innovate on them with Fortresses. These were suitably well-guarded and occupied by Pagan Min’s toughest commanders. However, if you disposed of the leader, the Fortress would weaken, reducing the number of enemies and alarms.
Stealth is highly encouraged in this case, though you could still go in guns blazing. With the rumored premise for Far Cry 7, seeing Fortresses return with more variety and unique types of commanders would be great.
New Mechanics
The stealth takedowns, gunplay, sliding and stealth have all more or less been refined over the years, and there’s nothing wrong with that. There have been numerous new mechanics like companions, Amigos, vehicle customization, Supremos backpacks, weapon rarity and ammo switching thrown into the mix.
However, Far Cry 7 needs to do something brand new. Dare we hope for more refined melee combat? Maybe interact with the environment in brand new ways? The rumored Interrogation mechanic sounds like it could be something, so we’ll have to wait and see.
Improved Enemy AI and Variety
For a series that’s grounded in reality, there’s only so much you can do when it comes to enemy variety. Still, it would be nice to have different types of enemies, like a stealth-focused type that hunts players and boasts improved mobility. Even if it can’t decide on new additions, improvements to the enemy AI would also be welcome, especially with how mixed they could be in Far Cry 6.
Survival Mechanics
Remember Far Cry 2? Unlike future titles in the Far Cry series, it didn’t follow a set open-world formula. Instead, there were more survival-focused mechanics, like guns needing to be scavenged regularly and jamming temporarily and medicine required to stave off the effects of malaria.
Far Cry 7 should dip into the survival sandbox well more, forcing players to eat and drink to keep their strength up, treat illnesses and wounds and maintain their weapons. If there’s anything that contemporary games have proven, such mechanics can enhance the experience. Of course, you should be able to tweak them based on preference or even turn them off entirely if desired.
More Interesting Side Activities
Hunting and fishing are just some of the activities Far Cry 6 downplayed or didn’t expand on after previous games. That should change in Far Cry 7, but more importantly, there need to be new compelling side activities (and we’re not talking about the weekly live-servicey insurgency missions from Far Cry 6). What those will ultimately be depends on the premise and setting, but convoy ambushes, scuba diving for treasure, and so on would be cool.
Note: The views expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily represent the views of, and should not be attributed to, GamingBolt as an organization.
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